Eponymous Wines
2010 MacAllister Vineyard Red
Red Blend •MacAllister Vineyard
California: Sonoma Valley
Mission Briefing
What's in a name?
We offer you today’s wine with our boldest recommendation - but be warned, quantity of this incredible wine is limited and we will run out before midnight (Pacific).
From winemaking legend Robert L. Pepi, today’s Eponymous 2010 MacAllister Vineyard Red is a wonderful delight. A veteran of over 40 harvests, Robert grew up in the wine trade. In the 1990s, his family-owned winery sold to Jackson Family wines and became the iconic Cardinale Estate.
Bob understands the power of place and he brings this understanding to bear with his own Eponymous label. His MacAllister vineyard produces extraordinary fruit for his equally extraordinary wines.
Very elegant and very flavorful, it is very difficult to find any flaws with this wine. If anything, we only wish that the bottles were larger!
Tasting Profile
| Look: | Very deep and foreboding, with hues that seem to shift, depending upon the light. Viewed in sunlight, gorgeous ruby pervades. In room lighting, the wine shows more purple. |
|---|---|
| Smell: | Lush and very fragrant, with heady aromas of dark fruit and soft spice. Dark cherry, dusty blackberry wrap around sweet tobacco, chocolate covered cherry, dusty dried rose, plum and subtle savory dried sage and rosemary. |
| Taste: | Dark and elegant with balanced flavors of dark raspberry, dark strawberry are followed by dusty dark cocoa powder, dry bramble, dried cherry, violet tea and subtle smoked meats. |
| Finish: | Ultra long and packed with fruit flavors that tail off very slowly, replaced by earthy elements and dusty chocolate. |
| Pairing: | Dry Provençale herb-rubbed spareribs would be a real delight with this wonderful wine. |
What the Winery Says
Eponymous Red Wine MacAllister Vineyard 2008
- Tasting Notes
- Year in year out the hallmark of the wine that the grapes from this vineyard allow us to make is the beautifully expressive aromas and elegant, balanced mouthfeel. To me this is the essence of a fine red wine/Bordeaux blend. The 2008 vintage, although slightly more challenging than most, did not disappoint. The complexity and intensity of the aromas are evident from the moment the cork is popped. Aromas hinting of red fruit, raspberries and cherries, along with orange peel, and spicy oak notes add to the enjoyment. It has more than sufficient body and structure with added flavors of vanilla and chocolate. Lively, bright, and balanced flavors are evidenced on the palate, with a long satisfying finish. The grapes come from a single vineyard, MacAllister Vineyard, near the ridge of the Mayacamas Range on the Sonoma side of mt. Veeder. This is a spectacular sloping site with multiple exposures and well drained, low fertility soils.
- abv
- 13.8
About the Winery
In 1966, my family bought a ranch with vineyards in the Napa Valley, thinking it a retreat from the city. In 1980, my retired father and I decided to start a winery on the property, giving it the name we each carried, Robert Pepi. Our first harvest was in 1981, and I’ve been making wine ever since. After the winery sold, I became a consulting winemaker, working mainly in California, but traveling also to Argentina, Colorado, and Texas.
Consulting has given me success, freedom, and the ability to work with exceptional vineyards and craft wines of which I am very proud. From time to time while traveling the back roads of California and Argentina, tending to my clients’ vineyards, I see vineyards that do not fit into my clients’ needs, but that excite me with their potential for quality wines. These vineyards were the impetus for starting my own label.
Eponymous began in 2000 with an opportunity to work with grapes that I felt would produce some of the best Cabernet in Napa Valley. Three vintages later another opportunity presented itself, through a friend and passionate vineyard manager, Javier Renteria who was managing, and still is, MacAllister Vineyard just off the Mt. Veeder ridge. Planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot, the vineyard’s differing soils and exposures gave me the chance to produce an elegant Bordeaux-style blend from Sonoma County.
In 2008 I found a Syrah vineyard with which I wanted to work, and in 2009 I made Cabernet Franc from the MacAllister Vineyard and a Cabernet Sauvignon from Spring Mountain in Napa Valley. I am sure that the story will not end there, as the chance to work with a great vineyard is not one that I can easily pass up.
Winemaker Robert L. Pepi
Robert has built his reputation making Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese for his family’s vineyard. He focuses on vineyard quality and innovation, some examples being; the development of a new trellising system to improve quality and the reintroduction of the Sangiovese grape to California.
Since 1995 he has worked as a consultant with vineyards in Argentina, Chile, Colorado, Texas and most of the best grape growing areas in California. This gives him a broader background as a grape grower and winemaker as well as expanding his opportunities to find some great vineyards from which he makes small quantities of his own wine, Eponymous.